The next month has Trace Adkins working two different parts of his public persona. The music part gets a workout when his next album, Cowboy’s Back In Town, comes out Aug. 17. And his acting abilities get used when he spends a few days in Los Angeles to film a part in the movie The Lincoln Lawyer.

The album and the movie have one other thing in common besides Trace: Both involve Matthew McConaughey. Matthew has the lead role in the movie, and he also gets namechecked in a song on the album called “Hell, I Can Do That.” Trace made sure Matthew got to hear it, though during a recent visit, Trace didn’t yet know what the actor thinks of the song.

“I gave it to him at the ACM Awards, ‘cause he was there presentin’ that night,” Trace noted. “He gave his infamous little talk about how his child was conceived — which none of us wanted to hear — but after he had done that, I was backstage and I told my manager, ‘I have to have a copy of that song with me ‘cause McConaughey’s gonna be there and I wanna hand it to him myself.’ So I gave it to him, and I said, ‘Listen to this song. You gotta listen all the way to the end, though.’ I didn’t want him to get halfway through it and say, ‘Oh, this is country bullshit and turn it off.’ And at that point, I wasn’t in the movie yet. I had read for it, but I told him that night, ‘Man, I read for a part in that Lincoln Lawyer movie you’re doing.’ He said, ‘What part?’ and I told him. He said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’d be a perfect part for you.’”

The part doesn’t need a lot of explanation. But it does give Trace a chance to plug the song title once more.

“It’s not a stretch,” he observed. “I’m the leader of a biker gang — hell, I can do that!”

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